


thou mightest conceive gods

by York



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Epilogue, Tarot, has some plot! has some necking!, is it really magic if your dream forest is dead?, it involves adam parrish so probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/York/pseuds/York
Summary: "Not a single tarot reading told me about us."A post-coital pillow talk in bed turns into a reading about waking dreams.





	thou mightest conceive gods

"You know, not a single tarot reading told me about us." Adam motioned to the null-space between them, bare chests pressed together, tucked against Ronan's side. His breath played across Ronan's collarbone, hair tickling his jaw. As he returned his hand to splay across Ronan's stomach, Adam felt Ronan's back arch a little into his touch.

"Really? Aren't they supposed to tell you the secrets of the universe, past-present-future, _blah blah_ —" he was interrupted by Adam's smile against his mouth briefly, having turned his head to tease. He indulged a soft kiss, never one to turn it down.

Adam moved his attention along Ronan's jaw, ending tucked into his neck and kissed a freckle there. "Not always," Adam admitted, relocating his hand from Ronan's stomach to his chest, letting his fingers trail his sternum. They were satiably cocooned in the bedroom's white duvet, a heartstring valley of pillows, and sheets with a thread count Adam assumed was astronomically high. "It's for divination, but it's also kind of... guided meditation."

Ronan made a _pfft_ noise. It was clear how he felt about the subject. Adam nudged his thigh with his own knee. This led to a retaliatory jostling grip on Adam's hip, a tickle under ribs in return, a bark of laughter, and a much tighter embrace for them both. "But," Adam said, leg now thoroughly hitched over Ronan's middle, "I wonder why I never saw you coming."

Realizing his mistake a little too late after seeing Ronan's lecherous grin, he pressed cold toes underneath Ronan's calf, which earned a small yelp. "Jesus, Adam," he grumbled, but was thumbing the bumps of Adam's spine anyway.

"Asshole," Adam said fondly, as he always did. Sensing that Ronan was going to make another immature comment, he rushed, " _Seriously_."

In response, Ronan made a similar noise to before. "The cards weren't snitches," he admired with a sharp smirk. "Why do you think I avoided that shit? I bet if you put a deck in front of me back then I would have drawn, fuck, the fucking _Magician_ and _Lovers_ , end of."

Adam had to draw the clutched covers up to his mouth to smother his fit of laughter. Ronan pulled on his hair but his teeth showed off his mirth, unembarrassed.

Recovering, voice having a lightness to it, Adam said, "Come on, you weren't that transparent." He meant to just look up at Ronan, but he did so through cheerily squinted eyes and he knew it would have some kind of effect.

"I dreamt of you almost every other night."

"Well, _God_." Shameless never-liar met blushing boyfriend. Adam tapped his middle and index fingers to the rhythm of Ronan's heart. He felt bursting, firecrackers making his brain their business. The duvet was getting a little warm.

"Wonder what they would say now."

Adam was at his utmost distracted, so he said, "What?"

"You know, a tarot thing. If I were to draw one."

Never did Adam think he would see the day. "You're interested?"

"Didn't say that." Ronan just stared off into space, at the ceiling. "Would you do one?"

"A reading?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to?"

Ronan shuffled a little, edging his shoulder out from under Adam's resting cheek. Adam let him sit up, Ronan proceeding to stretch his arms above his head, a sight of collapsing and overlapping muscles under black-inked skin that Adam enjoyed watching very much. The sheets curled and bunched around his front. It was hard to choose where to stare: the curving and jagged lines of his tattoo, stark and incomprehensibly mapping roads and memories down his back, or the beginnings of his ass. Adam had no reservations about choosing both, sharing time equally between them, propping himself up on his elbow.

"Where are they?" Ronan asked. To have Ronan admit to desiring participation in Adam's occult skills was, in all likelihood, an impossibility, so this was as close as it was going to get.

"My deck?"

"No, your fucking underwear."

"I can get those, too," said Adam, becoming giddy with the anticipation. He slipped out of Ronan's bed, maneuvering around memorized obstacles in the dark to his slumped bag against the bookshelf, stepping into his boxers along the way. Upon finding a pair of Ronan's discarded sweatpants with underwear still inside, he tossed them back toward the bed, then rifled through the side pocket for Persephone's inherited cards. They were protected diligently, a treasured memento of their time and practice together. He felt the weight, the temperature of them — normal, average, ever since Cabeswater had breathed its last breath into Gansey, but Adam still toyed with different spreads of them from time to time. To keep up the habit, to make sense of his life.

As he removed the deck from the black silk pouch, returning the covering carefully to his bag, a card slipped off the top. It fell face-up on the hardwood. The curiously knowing expression of the High Priestess, cradled by her chiffon blue gown, stared up at him. Adam's heart panged at encountering Persephone's card — by chance, by kismet, though intention of memory. He placed it gingerly back on the top of the deck, tucked neatly with the rest of its kin.

He allowed some measure of hope to bury into his heart.

Soon, he was sitting back down on the bed, pulling the sheets around his lap, toes touching Ronan's now-covered knee. "What kind of drawing would you want?"

Back facing the window, Ronan was alight with moonlight, casting silvery-blue beams across his cheek, neck, bare chest. His brow remained bored, lips playing with a pursing. Adam thought how he looked just then would be a good subject for a card's illustration; birthright sovereign of the Barns. "Impress me. Something fucking complex."

One and three-card draws were out, then. Adam lit up as he thought of the Celtic Cross, something he considered Ronan might actually appreciate. He explained the format, the number of cards — forewarning his temperamental boyfriend of all ten, to which he received a shrug — and how the interpretation of each depended on which position they were placed in. They would be drawn and read sequentially rather than all at once. The first two cards were at the center of the arrangement, meant to symbolize the heart of a situation.

Before starting, he asked Ronan what kind of problem he wanted to solve.

He replied, "Waking dreams. And this better not tell me I'm going to die or something."

After a disparaging look for the latter statement, Adam nodded to acknowledge the first, and began shuffling. "Isn't this... sacrilegious for you? Why now?"

Ronan rolled his eyes and scoffed. "I think we've proven by now magic is pretty damn real, so why not?"

A _why now_ being answered with a _why not_ seemed like a half-answer, even for rebellion incarnate. Nonetheless, and Adam choosing to let Ronan contemplate his understanding of Catholic hereticism himself, he said, "This one won't be magical. Not really, without Cabeswater."

"Kind of doubt that." Ronan's eyes were trained on Adam's delicately moving hands.

It didn't go unnoticed by Adam. "Your flirting won't change reality."

A tarot deck was never meant to be riffled or bridged, so Adam handled them overhand. It took more time for a pattern to settle, but it was worth it not to bend them. Once he was satisfied with the alignment — or, at least, how the alignment felt — he held out the deck to Ronan, who, with all suspicions etched into his twisted mouth, took one from the top.

The first card was, annoyingly, the Magician.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

"Coincidence," said Adam, because it was or was not. Ronan's dubious expression foreshadowed a brewing storm so Adam quickly posited an explanation: "It's not _my_ card. It's got nothing to do with me." He spun what knowledge he had about the Magician, intimate and reverent, skillfully aligning available resources to take action. "It's about manifesting desires, taking a mess of separate pieces and finding a way to bind them together."

"Getting shit done."

"Right."

"Like moving rocks."

"N— no, not liking moving... okay." Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he continued, "Things can seem aimless, but you can find the pattern that's always been there. Making the unknown known."

"Hm," was all Ronan said. Adam supposed it was better than making fun.

He picked the next card, placing it ninety degrees on top of the Magician, plush white duvet supporting them both. The Seven of Cups. Exhaling gratefully for the aptness of it, Adam summed up the current situation with as many references to imagination, choosing between dreamy ideas with the potential for order and unity toward the given goal. Yet, although dreams are fantastical and boundless, they must also be based in real life; practical, so it doubled as counsel.

Ronan pointed at the crossed cards, then jutted his thumb at Adam. "That sounds like complete bullshit."

Wryly, Adam smiled and bowed his head. "I know you too well. The narrative's what you make of it, and that makes the most sense when it comes to you."

"So, is this a pep talk?"

"It's a reading, Ronan."

"It's a pep talk."

"People don't pay money to hear their life is one huge bummer."

" _My_ life is a bummer." Adam gave him a look. "Not you. You're not part of the bummer." Adam's cheeks pinked a little at this. "Whatever. It's just hearing what people want to hear."

Adam sighed. He said, "With some basic insight, the cards can tell a story relevant to you and can help you see your problems in a new way."

"Okay. So I'm going to _will_ some cows to wake up, _with my mind_."

Frustration clipped the air's patience like a bad haircut. The whole event could have dissolved at that point, but the edges of the next card underneath Adam's palm seemed to nip at his skin. The paper of it warm under his intentful direction. He wanted to draw it, let it speak, let it be seen, like it was asking him to. Feeling that desire was odd in the absence of the Greywaren's forest, the moment's magic fabricated by the memory of scrying, tinfoil aqueous pools and wax-dripping candles. Even without the fully-fated sequence of cards that would hold meaning when interwoven with the ley line, Adam could compose a beauty in the cards by manner of his own mind, no matter what he drew. Even without Cabeswater, he would always be the magician.

"Can I keep going?" he asked.

Ronan raised an eyebrow, seriously looking like he was going to say no. "Sure," he said instead.

Promptly, Adam flipped the next card, resting it below the cross.

Interestingly, it was the Hanged Man. If he had Cabeswater to scry into for a deeper meaning, this would become more apparent. But Adam himself was at a loss.

"Does _that_ one mean I'll die?"

Adam blinked, unimpressed, but examined the upside-down man more closely. "No," he drew out. "It means you're subconsciously holding yourself back, and making an unnecessary sacrifice. Seeing the immediate selflessness as the only part of it, without recognizing that you're doing it." The interpretation tested the air, spilling between them, feeling justified.

"Martyrdom? Now that doesn't sound like me." The sarcasm wasn't lost, but Ronan was frowning.

He had both a seriousness and skepticism about him, a balance struck between the two. Belatedly, Adam was fussily pleased by Ronan's patience with the charade. On cue, Ronan said, "What's next?"

Adam drew another card, technically the fourth one, but placed it into the traditionally fifth position; one for conscious thought. The Celtic Cross had many different ways of playing out, and Adam proceeded with whichever movements fit the situation. In this moment, he needed something a little different, unseating.

The deck gave him what he wanted. He let out a breath. The Five of Cups.

Ronan stared at it. Three golden chalices tipped over before a bowed, darkly-clothed figure, two still upright behind him, out of the figure's sight. "Looks like a fucking mourner," he said.

"It is, I guess." There was more to it, but Adam was debating just how much to say. "The above position is for conscious thought — things that are on your mind." He paused, just for a moment. "It symbolizes loss, but also focusing a great deal over the loss, and not seeing what's around you. Glass half-full kind of thing." Adam bit his tongue. Maybe in his brevity he'd been too direct. It didn't take magic to know what motivated Ronan in ensuring dreams could exist without dreamers.

Predictably, this subdued the mood. Ronan's eyes were slitted, almost glaring, but there was a relaxed lean to his shoulders. Any tension those words and thoughts would have brought him had already been played out for months: over conversations and early morning drives and settling back into dreams that had woken him without permission. Ronan had once said that nightmares chased harder when you ran faster, and he was done running a long time ago.

He met Adam's appraising gaze, and when he did, there was a peace to them, not a pain. It made Adam want to smile, but he simply offered the deck.

Ronan allowed him the honors. "Get on with it."

He ought to address the leftmost position, finally. "Alright," he said, and flipped one card from the top.

The fifth card was a stalling transmission on an uphill: the Lovers.

"Parrish."

He wasn't going to say _coincidence_ again. He was not going to.

"Coincidence," he said.

"Jesus, fuck."

Adam relented, covering a bit-back grin with his hand. "This position represents the past," he said behind fingers, barely controlling his face but continued earnestly, "And, well, that's not _terribly_ relevant to the current situation, but—"

"I hate this, tarot is stupid, you're goddamn magical and Cabeswater exists somewhere and is pointing and laughing at us, in Latin."

Adam curled over into his lap, shaking with laughter. The deck was pressed to his chest, and maybe the cards _were_ laughing at them, because they were warm and his chest felt warm, too. "Sorry, the universe knows we made out," he managed. "It's finally snitching."

"Too late for that." But Ronan was circling a hand around Adam's arm, leaning into him and mouthing at his neck. It was quick, and he bit a little skin, and Adam inhaled sharply between indulgent laughs. Ronan's other hand snaked around Adam's waist, roaming and dipping down the side of his waistband — not to mess around, just to pass over Adam's bare hip and hold him close. Kissing Adam's ear, he stole from the moment's diversion to slide another card off from the pile. "Where does this one go?"

Adam couldn't resist going for a proper kiss after that — softer than the moment called for, probably — then placatingly guided Ronan's hand to the rightmost space of the diamond shape, and turned the future card.

It didn't seem possible for Adam's mood to heighten any more, but it did. "That's _your_ card," he said, placing his hand over Ronan's on his waist. It was Strength, written sure and bold, and he was half tongue-in-cheek, and half truthful.

"I'm a lion? Come on. Your flirting is worse than mine."

"No, the woman handling the lion," Adam responded.

"The— Parrish, I hope I don't need to remind you," and he motioned to his person, shirtless and masculine, fiercely handsome and monochrome in the dark. Adam did not need reminding, but he also wouldn't pass by an opportunity to jog his memory.

"Don't I know. Gender is pretty abstract here, though." Above the white-clothed woman crowned a lemniscate halo, the same symbol above the Magician. Her hands cradled the great-maned muzzle of a lion, which was looking up, slack-jawed and trusting. It reminded Adam of Chainsaw. He spared a thought to where he'd last seen her; curled next to Opal, having been bundled quite sleepily in an oversized sweatshirt.

"You once said my card's the Chariot," Ronan said, sounding like a complaint, but pressed his mouth to Adam's shoulder.

Adam shrugged the shoulder that Ronan wasn't focused on. "They're similar. Outer strength and will, inner strength and spirit. Complementary things. I suppose this means you'll keep on being you, for better or worse," Adam lamented.

Ronan laughed. "Asshole," he said affectionately, as he always did. He held out his hand expectantly, and Adam let another card fall into his waiting palm. "And this one?"

"Oh. This is where I get to throw unsolicited advice at you."

"Oh, joy." He did not sound particularly joyous. Then he pointed out, "But it is kind of solicited."

"You never did actually _ask_ for the reading."

Ronan didn't seem to think this was contradictory. "Yeah, but it's you." Adam didn't really know what that meant. His ears did, however, and they burned at the edges.

Taking the card from him, Adam laid it to the right of the crossed arrangement, at the bottom of a new vertical row. A gallant and plumed knight was reigning in a rearing tawny horse, depicting the picaresque Knight of Wands.

It was a straightforward minor arcana, good for recommending a course of action, all determined and the relentless pursuit of an ideal. And if there was anything to please Ronan in the world, it was being given permission to act first and think later. At the sight of his characteristic savage smile, Adam corrected that it did not, in fact, imply recklessness was a good thing.

"Come on, where's your sense of adventure?"

"Kept in check by my will to live, I imagine."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive."

Adam fundamentally disagreed, but did not say so, too amused by Ronan's levity. He caught his jaw with his thumb and forefinger, a rub of calluses and stubble, but Ronan wrested his head away and simultaneously grabbed Adam's hand in his. Adam was charmed by the quick shift in Ronan's aggression when he touched his lips to Adam's fingers briefly, then twined both their grasps together, palms pressed to each other's.

A lot about his dreamer was charming; the way his teeth bit his lip sometimes when he smiled, the way he held Adam's gaze without a waver, the way he could turn any banter into a confession or any rowdiness into a caress. Sometimes he was that knight, all elemental fire, but no matter how close Adam came to him, he never got burned.

Adam leaned in and kissed him, twin smiles and closed eyes, and he was reminded of just how many days had passed like this. Sleeping and not sleeping at the Barns, stargazing and sunbathing, talking about everything and moments where they never needed to say anything at all. He could have said, just for fun, that the knight can also be read as lust or passion — which would have been true, but also a definite distraction. So when they bumped noses, Adam cleared his throat. Ronan gave an exaggerated sigh, and nudged Adam's hand back to its duty.

Still a little wistful, Adam drew another card.

When it was face up, he was met with the sight of a suit that didn't often indicate lighthearted things: the Two of Swords.

Adam's change in expression must have been severe, because Ronan, leaning back with the onset of worry, said, "What is it?"

If Adam were able to see himself, he'd know that his brows basically wrote out the word _huh_ by themselves. "It's the external influences position," Adam started, then stopped, sliding the card a centimeter as if to double-check. "Things you can't control. Things that can control you."

"Ominous." But his tone of sarcasm muted his concern, and he had relaxed back into doubt.

"It's a card for blocked emotions," Adam said. "But that doesn't make sense. Whose?"

Ronan just picked at his leather bracelets, one by one. "Am I supposed to answer that?"

Looking closer, finger tracing one of the swords down to the center point, where a blindfolded individual passively sat, Adam thought it was a thing out of its environment. Something about those lines stirred something inside of him, the disconnect and blindness rousing some buried realization, somewhere far away. But it was the background, the rocky and craggy sea, waves crashing broken against the shore that tipped Adam off the most.

"The ley lines."

Ronan stopped biting at his wrist.

"Sorry, I — I'm guessing here, but — the swords, diverging, they're symbols of power but balanced between each other, and since it's something that's affecting you..." His thoughts whirred. Cabeswater has blocked emotions? Did that mean they still needed to free more of the lines? "You could be limited in your dreams because the ley lines are still limited."

"Is this a reading for me, or you? Or Cabeswater?"

Adam looked up. "All of the above?"

Ronan looked thoughtful. He reclined back on his elbows, eyes unfocused. "You know, it makes sense. Not a limitation of the," he waved his hand, "dream object — or, not _just_ that, but also its environment. We know that Cabeswater and the lines around here are dormant, but," and then he looked at Adam, and they both seemed to be on to the same thing. "The lines go all over the world."

And the image of it was grand, as it usually was. Interconnected pathways of magic, just like Adam had seen when threw himself deeply into scrying, the ancient forest trying to tell him of everything it was cut off from, imploring him to imagine what the finished map would look like. Adam knew there was always still work to be done, even if there wasn't a voice in his ear asking him to, even if he wasn't close enough to touch it.

"Maybe the Magician really was your card," said Ronan. He bumped the backs of his knuckles against Adam's knee.

"I don't know," Adam replied, altogether still wearied by the angular set of the two blades, criss-crossing and sharp. "Something to think about, though."

He could feel Ronan's gaze regarding him. "Sure," he murmured. Then, abruptly: "Okay, next."

It snapped Adam partially out of his thoughts. They'd have time to investigate that possibility, later.

"Next," Adam said, "Hopes and fears." He took another card off the top of the deck. All religious symbolism, hand raised in benediction, the Hierophant sat above its predecessor. Adam hummed in contemplation, but the most obvious interpretation was apparent. He chose the route of fear, though that spot in the layout could be taken as either. Explaining as much to Ronan, the Hierophant mirrored Ronan's attachment to his beliefs, his church, and how he may consider this undertaking his life's work — everything that mattered. Balancing his desires with loyalty to his roots was precarious, and bound to unnerve anyone stuck between the two.

"Oh, Christ." He'd meant it as a curse, but Adam raised a single fair eyebrow at its irony. "Every day I stray further from God's light?"

"Hey, it's supposed to be about what you feel, not a fact."

"Yeah, I'll do some Hail Marys after this, just in case. Thanks for reminding me."

"No problem." In all honesty, with their bodies still this close together, Adam wondered after what Ronan thought about his sexuality as well as his magic. They had talked about it a little: a Sunday morning when he had been invited to mass, Adam asked if bringing along a boyfriend was something unholy. It depended on the parish, really, Ronan explained, and St. Agnes was progressively more welcoming to different walks of life than some other communities. They didn't hold hands in public, though — but Adam hadn't felt like a shameful secret standing next to the Lynch brothers. He had felt wanted, and the hymns were beautiful in Ronan's voice.

"Final one, right?"

"Yes." And Adam drew it.

The Earth spun on its axis a little more slowly.

The painted image showed a small blond child, being handed a teeming cup of greenery and flowers by a taller, hooded child. Both of them were surrounded by five more golden chalices of equally flourishing natural beauty. Around the border, it read: Six of Cups.

Ronan was studying the image very closely. A dozen emotions crossed his features, and he did not speak.

Adam was still holding Ronan's hand. He just said, "The outcome." Awestruck, and a bit heartsick, he ran his thumb into the ridge between Ronan's knuckles. "Reunion."

As planned, they left the reading at that. It was possible Cabeswater was indeed out there, somewhere, in some form, shuffling cards by way of ghosts and guiding the two boys it loved most forward by their finger-laced hands. Maybe, magic still existed in its magician, because in the waning moonlight of a quiet night, in a cluttered room fraught with love and possibility, the upturned face of a young blond boy smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> for card illustration references, i used the Rider-Waite deck (the most common one). sometimes the images convey more than the connotations so it's worth checking out!
> 
> title again from an E. E. Cummings poem, "O sweet spontaneous" which is basically an ode to Cabeswater if i've ever seen one. will i ever name something not after a poem idk the stars say maybe.


End file.
